Hard news is not news

 In 21^st century the newspaper has relied on technology for shape of news it publishes. The introduction of new technology has totally changed the way of journalism, television and radio has dictated the structure shape to a large extent.

I argue that the use of the inverted pyramid style  is not considered in online journalism since they write and publish news without following the journalistic way of publishing news because anyone can publish news through media and people read them easy because they see it is the simple way of getting news rather than buying a newspaper and read. 

Inverted pyramid has been the style we practiced centuries ago and the so called hard news is about to die. At the best it will become a cultural object displayed only in the mildewed pages of provincial rag sheets whatever remained in the inverted pyramid will be refurbished with telling detail delivered from enhanced prose and a context.

 Before burying the inverted pyramid it is fair to give it a well deserved eulogy. The inverted pyramid was born soon after the commercialization of the telegraph. To save costs editors instructed correspondents to go straight to the point telling the most important parts of the story first and allowing the story to taper to its important of insignificance.

This cause most of sub-editors to be lazy if a story was too long for the allocated slot and sub-editors could cut the last paragraphs and first few paragraphs written to answer the six questions or the 5Ws and H (what, who, where, when, why, and how) this helps to give readers the most critical beats of information quickly so they can move to another story.

The most important information came in the lead which summarized the story; the second paragraph supported the lead by explaining it or providing information or a direct quotation. The third or fourth offered some addition important information.

The next paragraph or might be the last one  it offered the addition important information and the final section consisted of any number of paragraphs and contain what a reporter as dispensable information that the sub-editor can cut off.

The new technology has shape the news to different view since nowadays journalism has become like not a professional because a lot of people publish news in internet and people read the news without knowing it is true or not and through internet you can get different news so that people take the advantage that when you have smart phone or internet access you can get news so there is no need of buying a newspaper they see like it will take time for them to get news early and sometime seems like buying newspaper is cost full than reading it online.

The technology has been affecting the rate of newspaper  buying so it costs people who sell  newspaper because they read them online and this cause them not to buy the news papers and this became the problem to sellers because they don’t get what they demand.

The central argument of the author in this article is that he believes that inverted pyramid was applied in way back because nowadays online journalism has become the obstacle of development of inverted pyramid because people who write do not follow the process of writing and this affect the journalism professional since writers do not follow the 5Ws and H when writing their stories this cause the editors also to be lazy because they don’t do their work responsibly because the 5WsPLUS H has become useless.

One competing argument against the inverted pyramid which relies on reporter’s orientation and interest rather than a need and interest of the reader is based on recent finding in linguistics known as “relevant theory” this theory distinguish what readers want from what they read.

“Readers wants the greatest contextual effect they want most surprising or mind-bending or hunch- confirming  information packaged so that it can be read easily” ( write Klement and Matalene 1998,p.1) Many newspaper now favor the emerging form of media writing because the style holds the wider appeal to a larger audience while hard news attracts readers interested in the particular event example sports, international, business and national news readers likes different news in newspapers you will find people who concentrate in sports news only so they buy news paper because of the sports news only while others read both news or whatever.

Furthermore I agree with the author because it is true that technology has changed the total way of newspaper. News will be news written in the respect sand swiftness of time, to competing media, the thirst of the modern public for visual and intellectual as against cold magisterial “facts” supplied in the form of hard news. Every journalist must learn how to write well, how to tell story, how to conquer words and structures how to please and how to satisfy people in the society.

Murdochs speech

Internet is a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities consisting interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols. Internet has brought a lot of changes in the world and these changes makes people live and use internet as the part of their lives.

The following are some of changes which brought by internet in the modern world:

The first change brought by internet in the modern world is in communication, this is to say that a way back people used different means of communication to communicate each other such as letters, whereby people were supposed to wait for reply and that was a very difficult way to communicate but now a days we communicate through text message, emails, video chat and social media.

Another change brought by internet in the modern world is in research in this case we can see how easy it is to do research of something that the way it used to be since now a days we have Google, Wikipedia and websites, it is very helpful for searching different things for fast results and it’s very easy to learn about different fields and get the full information.

The other change made by internet in the modern world is in news and weather, here we see that way back we used clouds to be aware that it will rain and to it was hard to know if there are different disaster coming such as floods and other disasters. Now days we can see through internet and in media that what is going on in the weather it’s easy to find news about the weather.

There is other change which is education, in education we can see that way back it was hard to get a degree education because of different obstacles such as transport and other obstacles but now it’s easy to get a degree, masters or doctorate when you are at home or anywhere else because there is online education since you can apply any university you wish to study your degree or something through online.

Also the other change is in job searching, in this case we can see it was hard to search for a job those times but now it’s easy to find a job or to get a job opportunity through online or internet because you find different job opportunity in online advertisement and you Can apply online and get the job you are asking for.

The newspaper has been affected by the advert of internet since newspaper seems like delaying news while people can search everything online and can get news through internet and media such as television radio and online so that people think they waste their time to buy hard copy and read while they can read online and in people’s blogs. Example Murdoch says... “In this spirit we’re now turning to the internet. Today the newspaper is just a paper. Tomorrow it can be a destination”.

Murdock suggestions to the newspaper editors to meet challenges brought by internet is to deliver the way consumers want to receive it before they can apply their competitive advantages they can free their minds and start thinking like their newest consumers. They should invest their printed papers so they remain an important part of their reader’s daily lives.

The Murdock views are very relevant to Tanzania since internet is everything here people get news from websites Google blogs and online, news papers are just there but few people trying to buy newspaper and read but most of us we are affected with the use internet because we use internet to find news and different updates so most of people in Tanzania uses internet as the source of their information and other things like entertainment banking and many things. The use of news papers has become disappeared day after day because of internet because internet simplifies everything.

News paper industry face different challenges in Tanzania, the following are some of challenges:

 The sales drop daily, this because people prefer to use internet than reading news in the newspapers, this cause the market of newspaper to drop at large it cost the owner of newspaper face the challenge of paying the journalists to write stories and report the news because they are not paid what they demand compare to what they do. To collect news it’s not an easy task so that journalists must be paid enough salary.

The coming of television is also another challenge facing newspaper because since the coming of television people depends to get news from television where they can get national news international news business and sports news so that they don’t see the important of newspapers while there is television.

Another challenge facing newspaper industry is competition between them selves where by others sells much than the rest and you find this competition cause others to seem like they are in low quality.